The most helpful favorable review

The most helpful critical review

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 starsGreat Phone
A great phone. Easy, easy, easy!!! I am in my sixties and was concerned that a smart phone would be to complicated for me. I chose this phone because I had a regular Pantech and liked it, also there was a great deal. I have not been sorry. Would buy again.

Published on October 6, 2011 by hadassah

93 of 96 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 starsDissatisfied after a year
ORIGINAL REVIEW (see updates below):

This is the second Pantech phone I've had. The first one was functional and reliable, and so I didn't hesitate (much) to try this smartphone. I liked the features, and I got it during Amazon's 1c sale, so you can't beat the price (unless you can get it free). I've had it for a week.

The Pantech Breakout is Verizon's first inexpensive 4g phone. The specs are impressive, the 4g is fast and it works well. It has a slightly smaller screen than the more expensive phones. This is good in that it fits in your pocket a lot easier. I don't miss the size when watching videos either. When I wish I had a larger screen is when I am using the touch screen keyboard. The buttons are kind of small. Purchase a good keyboard app like SwiftKey X and it will fix all your typing errors.

The other drawback of the Breakout is all of the bloatware (applications that Verizon puts on the phone that you don't use, but they won't let you remove). This is also true of Verizon's more expensive 4g phones, but they have more memory, so it is not quite so annoying. If you want to download a lot of apps on the Breakout, you will quickly be told that you are running low on memory and that you should move apps to the SD card. The problem is, they won't let you move the bloatware to the SD card either. Hence, you are kind of stuck with the phones stock programs plus a few that you download. This is fine for the regular user. The programs that come with the phone are pretty great. Power users should look elsewhere.

The way around the bloatware is to root (this gives you permission to change all sorts of things in your phone that the manufacturer never intended) your phone. This is not a good idea for non-techies. Since the Breakout is a mid-range phone, super-techies haven't been that interested in figuring out how to root it, so it's not an easy process. Again, power-users stay away.

That said, $.01 is a great price, 4G is great technology and the Pantech works beautifully. Just figure out what you want to do with it.

Loved my old droid2 but it finally died. Gal at Verizon recomended this pan tech outbreak over iPhone so I bought it with my eligible upgrade. I hate this phone!!! Every time it rings I pick it up and it hangs up on the call. The battery life is horrible horrible horrible. Stupid me assumed the camera had a flash, no such luck. The quick dial favorite widgets are too temperamental ,sometimes I want to text and it calls...ugh. I tried to return it and Verizon employee convinced me to give it more time to get used to..now I can't return it and I'm not eligible for an upgrade till 2013. Hate this phone soooooo much, I may fork over the $700 for an iPhone just to have a phone that works. Save yourself the heartbreak and carefully compare features before buying this pos. just don't listen to employees who are trying to move models. Do side by side comparisons and read reviews. This phone is not worth any price..in fact I'd pay NOT To use it!!!P.s. I would like to retract the one star and give it negative stars.

so i got this phone cause it looked good, had the keyboard features i like and it was only .01.i have had it for 9 days and it has shut itself off 4 times.i had to pull the battery to get it operating again. i called verizon as amazon suggested and we did a hard re-set to see if it fixes the issue. don't have high hopes.it's too bad because otherwise i really like this phone.

Had mine for a few days & I am very impressed. I got mine at Best Buy for $30. Saw the Amazon deal later. Anyway, it is a great phone even for the extra $30. I did buy the case & a screen protector from Amazon. Much better price than BB. The case fits perfectly & the Skimomi SP is almost invisble! I had Samsung Charge ($150 at BB) for a few days, but this Pantech is better in every way, save for the super amoled screen on the charge. But I don't really miss that screen. The BO has a very good screen in it's own right. I would have liked a headphone jack protector, but no biggy. I just put a piece of black electrical tape over it.

The BO seems faster in every way compared to the Samsung Charge. The BO has a better processor, Andoid 2.3 & more RAM.

Just got this phone yesterday as a replacement froma stolen Metro PCS phone. and i have not put it down yet. This is way better than i expected. Easy to use. Great looking icons. Cool preloaded apps. I cant think of a thing to downgrade this. Its cool that its not as big as the other 3G phones, too. Seriously- i love it!!!

I purchased this Pantech Breakout phone in October 2011. Since the first month of having it, I have had to replace the SD card, SIM Card, and just recently the phone itself. I have lost photos of my Daughter games, Dinner dates out with friends, and so much more. I patiently dealt with this phone for a year. I had to replacing the SD card about every month. It would just turn off at random times, which ticked my husband off AT ME. It would freeze in the middle of recording a video so I would have half of a final cheer that my daughter did , this is something that they practiced for MONTHS to get right , and thank to this phone I missed it all together just trying to get it to come back on the get the end of the cheer. Thanks goodness one of the other parents had a video camera. And before you rag on me for not bringing a video camera in the first place..... You would think if you purchase something that WORKED, it would have worked. Then when I call Verizon to make it better, The wouldn't give me any contact information for Pantech , the refuse to let me speak to a manager. And told me my options are replacing this phone with something else , but I still had to pay for the battery and the back of the phone .... I bought a phone intact .... Purchase an un godly amount of SD CARD's. Replaced the SIMS card's , Lost pictures you can't get back. Never once did I complain. I sucked it up and went on .... So now I am stuck with about 20 SD Cards.... Another phone coming to me that was my only option and additional 50 Bucks out of my pocket ... Oh yeah right here at Christmas. You want to buy SD cards ?? I have never complained not one time, Never and I feel like, because I didn't curse and act a fool I was just pushed around. Very VERY disappointed.

I bought this phone in May of 2012 and have now had it for over a year. This phone was a miracle for the first month or so of me having it and using it constantly. After having it for about 2 months, I began to notice the phone slowing down. I went through and deleted my unused apps, hoping to free up some storage space and possibly increase speed. When that didn't work, I reduced the brightness settings and installed a battery protector app (Juice Defender). This app helped my battery life greatly for about 3 or 4 months. After about 4 months of having Juice Defender installed on the phone, I started getting pop-ups on the home screen saying that it was not responding and I had the option to either Force Close or Wait for it to begin working again. This would happen about once or twice a day for about a month. Eventually, this warning appeared every time I tried to go to my home screen. If I turned the phone on, I had to fight with the home screen to get the apps I use regularly into the Task Manager. I still do it this day even. Also, the phone freezes constantly no matter what you do and the only way to get it working again is by taking the battery out and turning it back on and fighting with the home screen for another 15 minutes.

This phone is a dream when it's new, but after a few months, it goes down hill. In order to use this phone, you must have A LOT of patience and time. I have neither one of these things.

Would not recommend this phone to anyone, no matter what the terms may be.

First it comes with preinstalled apps that you CANNOT delete and are completely useless, such as the NFL game! This in itself isn't so bad because you can hide them, however these hidden apps DO take up memory which this phone IS short on. And if you are not using them you must take the time to make sure to set the apps to NOT automatically update.

This phone does not allow you to increase the font size to make it readable, so glasses or a magnifier are a must for those with poor vision. There is an app available to do this, but is poor also.

And speaking of apps, the memory is almost non existent in this phone. I have Facebook and the Kindle reading app on it and CANNOT add any additional apps as there is NOT enough memory.

I HAVE been counting down the days soon after the day I got it to get my upgrade. I have learned a very important lesson....RESEARCH prior to picking out or having a tech choose something they THINK you might like!!!

I dimmed screen, turned off GPS and turned off Wi-Fi and I am still needing to charge this phone everyday! It has a lot of apps which I guess is good. I would say avoid because of the short battery life.